{"id":57183,"date":"2016-01-19T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57183"},"modified":"2016-01-19T08:13:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T14:13:04","slug":"americas-oldest-civil-rights-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57183","title":{"rendered":"America’s Oldest Civil Rights Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years, I’ve had two fascinating interviews on my show, on a subjects that gets short-to-nonexistent shrift in the mainstream media and academia; the role of our Second Amendment in the Civil Rights movement. \u00a0Charles Cobb’s\u00a0This Non-Violent Stuff’ll Get You Killed<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>chronicles the role of armed blacks in protecting the nascent civil rights movement of the sixties, while Nicholas Johnson’s\u00a0Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms<\/a><\/em> documents the history of armed black resistance to racism.<\/p>\n

Another story that needs to be told – especially in the wake of President Obama’s “town hall meeting” about guns two weeks ago, and the wave of the President’s minions trying to paint gun control as a racial issue, is the inextricable involvement of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization in protecting the nascent civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

That’d be the National Rifle Association.<\/p>\n

A group called the “Deacons of Defense” – largely black military veterans – sprang up to defend civil rights workers and leaders, including Martin Luther King, as well as helping defend blacks in general from the Klan’s depredations.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t an academic exercise:<\/p>\n

On a hot July night, a cavalcade of 25 Klan automobiles drove through a black neighborhood in Bogalusa, shouting vile comments at women and spewing racial insults. Some Klansmen then randomly fired into some houses. To the Klansmen\u2019s shock, the response was a fusillade of return fire. The Klan members sped away in fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey finally found out that we really are men,\u201d one Deacons leader remembered, \u201cand that we would do what we said, and we meant what we said.\u201d<\/p>\n

The escalating crisis forced the hand of the U.S. Department of Justice. Previously timid about expending political capital against the Klan\u2019s alliance with local police, the DOJ unleashed Civil Rights Division head John Doar. For the first time ever, the DOJ took action against pro-Klan local law enforcement. By the end of the year, the Louisiana Klan had been devastated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Deacons were rigidly politically neutral – the snubbed Stokely Carmichael’s “black power” agitation, sticking to self-defense – but their impact was immense:<\/p>\n

Black dignity\u2014the responsible protection of family and community\u2014was a CORE value of the Deacons. For centuries, adult black men had been called \u201cboy,\u201d and\u2014because of fear of white violence\u2014often acted in servile manner to those whites who treated them with disdain. No longer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that thought alone terrifies the Big Left.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0let nobody forget that the NRA was right there with them (I’ve added various bits of emphasis):<\/p>\n

As America\u2019s youngest civil rights organization, the Deacons received support from America\u2019s oldest civil rights organization\u2014the NRA, which, like the Deacons, was dedicated to training Americans in the responsible exercise of constitutional rights. At the time, the NRA was the authorized public representative of the U.S. Army\u2019s Civilian Marksmanship Program, and could sell army surplus ammunition at discounts to NRA members.<\/p>\n

So the Deacons for Defense\u2014as NRA members\u2014bought ammunition in bulk, and distributed it for free to individual members.<\/strong> It\u2019s little wonder, though, that the NRA was the Deacons\u2019 arsenal. For most of the 20th century, the NRA shooting range in Washington, D.C., had been one of the few public accommodations in the city that was not racially segregated<\/strong>. Virtually alone among the sporting organizations of the late 19th and early 20th century, the NRA had always remained open to members of all races<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As for firearms, the Deacons already had plenty of their own\u2014especially in the \u201cSportsman\u2019s Paradise\u201d of Louisiana. As it had back in 1775, a strong tradition of hunting provided a solid foundation for armed defense of liberty.<\/p>\n

Initially, the Deacons\u2019 main arms were shotguns, plus some handguns. Over time, there were efforts to standardize the Deacons with .30-cal. M-1 carbines [obtained from the Civilian Marksmanship Program, administered by the NRA] and .38 Special revolvers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And spread it around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years, I’ve had two fascinating interviews on my show, on a subjects that gets short-to-nonexistent shrift in the mainstream media and academia; the role of our Second Amendment in the Civil Rights movement. \u00a0Charles Cobb’s\u00a0This Non-Violent Stuff’ll Get You Killed\u00a0chronicles the role of armed blacks in protecting the nascent civil rights movement of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,54,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-gun-control","category-ebony-and-ivory","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57188,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57183\/revisions\/57188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}